EDITORIAL: End exemption for schools, motels on sprinkler systems

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Back-to-back infernos in the past week at a motel in Point Pleasant Beach and a school in Edison are fresh, tragic reminders of the need to end the grandfather clause that exempts the state's motels, schools and other buildings constructed before 2006 from having to install sprinkler systems.

The Mariner's Cove Motor Inn fire in Point Pleasant Beach took four lives last week. And while no lives were lost in the fire at the James Monroe Elementary School in Edison over the weekend, the building burned to the ground.

At an approximate cost of $3 per square foot to install such systems, this should not be beyond the reach of those small-business owners of motels, nor of school districts. If it is, the state should supply grants or low-interest loans to assist them.

How many tragedies must happen before the state Legislature is moved to act? Nothing was done following the Seaside Park and Seaside Heights boardwalk fire last year, either, in which the lack of sprinkler systems was a major contributor to its devastating spread.

The time for excuses is over.

More than 200 motels along the Jersey Shore and hundreds statewide are not required to have fire sprinklers under a state law that exempted them from having to provide the life-saving equipment. The state Uniform Fire Code has mandated that schools, motels with more than two stories and other commercial buildings have sprinkler systems only since 2006.

Older buildings, such as the Mariner's Cove Motor Inn, were not required to be retrofitted at that time. Neither were existing New Jersey school buildings. In Edison, the James Monroe School was built in the early 1960s, and the school district has not built a new school since 1972, according to Board of Education President Gene Maeroff. As a result, most of the buildings lack sprinkler systems. That can't be very comforting to parents.

New Jersey has been here before. After the 2000 Seton Hall University dorm fire that killed three students and injured dozens of others, legislation was adopted to require fire sprinklers on campuses statewide.

Since then, there have been no dorm fire fatalities in the state, even though there have been 20 fires, said David Kurasz, executive director of the New Jersey Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board. Sprinklers work.

The state cannot turn its back on very real dangers in an effort to seem business friendly or regulation averse. Ocean County lawmakers should take the lead in working to revoke the grandfather clause that allowed the tragedies in Point Pleasant Beach and Edison to happen and provide money in the form of grants or loans for those small businesses that cannot afford to install fire suppression systems.

To continue to ignore these ongoing and growing risks to citizens and students throughout the state is unacceptable. The state needs to act immediately. The question is not "Will there be another fire?" but "When will the next fire come and how many will die?"

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EDITORIAL: End exemption for schools, motels on sprinkler systems

Back-to-back infernos in the past week at a motel in Point Pleasant Beach and a school in Edison are fresh, tragic reminders of the need to end the grandfather clause that exempts the state's motels,

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